The Hoarder
by 1ofthethousands
Summary: Ten-year-old Kenneth finds comfort in inanimate objects, while his mother struggles to come to terms with Kenneth's strange obsessions.


**The Hoarder**

It was a fine Tuesday morning; some would say it was one of the best the year had to offer, Kenneth however, was finding it intolerable. _She_ was at it again. For the last few years his mother had slowly, but surely, been _spring-cleaning_. And now his was the only room left. _Ugh_, The idea sent a shudder through Kenneth. Then a creak notified him to his mother's presence. She was standing in the plywood doorway. Then it began, the shifting as she moved her weight back and forth, the making of her little quips and comments, constantly bothering him with a hum most repetitive. He noticed that several of her slippered toes had crept over the threshold; they were slowly invading his privacy. He grew tense, terrified, that at any moment she could swoop in and grab one of his treasures, whisking it off to the church fate or car boot sale, where it would never be seen again.

Kenneth was far from the average ten year old. At this particular moment in time he was croached into an old armchair, which was upholstered in what one could only assume was the remnants of a threadbare parachute. He was not alone in this unusual chair; with him he had several odd socks, a watering can and a stuffed pheasant he affectionately nicknamed Trevor. Kenneth had a slightly different reality to other children his age. While they embraced mundane he diverted his attention to the exceptional, and he knew his mother found it unnerving. He felt a space of misunderstanding between the two of them, which had only widened since his dad left.

He looked past her into the corridor, and he couldn't help but notice the differences between his own little haven and the clinical cream walls of the surrounding house. The world outside his room was his mother's domain and he did not care for it. Gleaming family portraits hung on the spotless walls, and it disorientated him. It reminded him of a showroom. Back when his dad was around, he had taken Kenneth to one of those showrooms, to help pick out the kitchen cupboards, Kenneth remembered how he had loved to see all the taps lined up in rows. But they were always trying to sell you something in showrooms; and his mother seemed to have purchased a lifestyle.

Kenneth's room was different. It was chintzy and cramped tight with wonder. He had packed it high with everything and anything, towers of mouldy old newspapers, and stacks of top hats. Bits and bobs dangled overhead, twine and ribbon and canopy. What little of the carpet that could be seen under the debris, was a patchwork of colour and prints. A sheet of sheer yellow material hung over of the window, and it filled the room with its warm amber glow. Kenneth smiled at the home he had made for himself, a place utterly his. He would tell you his favourite bit, if you asked him nicely. It had always been his collection of metal knick-knacks, displayed with love on his lopsided shelves. What was most spectacular about these metal objects was what Kenneth had created with them. He was obsessed with rust, and to him it was like magic. The orange oxides enchanted him, as he spritzed his collection daily with water. Then, as time went on, he was rewarded for his patience, and he began to bear witness to the slow change of the cold hard grey as it transformed to pungent orange.

He could have happily have stayed forever in this room, alone with his thousand year old thoughts, in his ten-year-old mind. But Kenneth had a problem, his mother was still hovering in the corridor, and he stared in horror as she edged her way into his room. He couldn't help but think that this was all going to end in disaster. The clatter of brass, confirmed his fears, as his mother's modest skirt caught on his CD rack, toppling it, along with all of Kenneth's percussion instruments, to the ground. Kenneth's mother was now swaying precariously back and forth, perched on one leg, she was unable to find her footing on the cluttered floor. Then, in an attempt to regain her balance she grabbed hold of his antique side table. He had picked this particular side table from the window of a charity shop. He had received the strangest look from the woman behind the counter when he had peered up at her inquiring about the table, but she had told him of how it came to be in the shop none the less. He felt that this table had earned a place in his treasure trove, as it had once fought gallantly in battle against a teething Labrador, a fight that unfortunately resulted in the loss of one of its four spindly legs.

Kenneth's mother, however, was unaware of the hardships this table had faced in its previous life. Had she known of this table's instability, she probably would have placed her trust in the significantly more reliable traffic cone to her left. The Heroic side table simply could not cope with the situation. It crumpled in defeat, bringing Kenneth's mother down with it. She landed quite safely onto a bloated old puffett, but in that moment something else quite horrible happened. Upon her descent, one of Kenneth's mother's flailing hands reached out and knocked the lopsided shelves that housed Kenneth's most valued rust. Years of heavy use had warn these shelves to breaking point, and this last knock was the final blow. With one loud thunk and the clatter of metal, Kenneth's collection dropped to the patchwork carpet.

There was stillness in the room. The yellow light leaching in through for the window illuminated year's worth of bronze dust as it hung limply in the air. Then it drifted home, settling on the scene in Kenneth's room. Kenneth was still sitting in his armchair, his small hands clenched tightly to the worn armrests. He looked at his most prized possessions where they lay broken on the ground, and let out a little whimper of despair. Silent tears welled up inside of him, until he could no longer contain them. They slid slowly down his cheeks.

His mother had not moved from where she lay in the clutter. He expected her to jump up, brush the dust from her clothes and scold him for letting something like this happen. He imagined what she might say to him, _' I could have been killed!' 'If you had only cleared this tip out once in a while!' _or, _'Its not healthy to keep it like this!'_ However Kenneth's mother did not say anything. She simply looked up at him from the floor. Her brow furrowed, and her lips pressed tight together. She slowly got up and carefully stepped towards him, picking her path cautiously through the wreckage, to where her son sat shocked and still. When she reached his chair, she did something quite unexpected. She leaned down, put her arms around him, and hugged her son. She hadn't held him like this in some time and Kenneth found it strange but comforting.

'I'm sorry.'

Simply put and simply understood, Kenneth's mother knew him after all. Then she turned and left, closing the door silently behind her.

**Reviews are much appreciated!**


End file.
